HARARE, Zimbabwe — Signaling that impoverished Zimbabwe could be on the verge of a historic change, opposition leaders, who say they won this weekend's election outright, were reportedly in talks to push longtime President Robert Mugabe from office.

Because the country's security forces have stayed on the sidelines so far, there was speculation that main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who appeared to be leading in the voting, eventually could succeed Mugabe.

The 84-year-old president has governed this nation of 12 million with an iron grip for the past 28 years.

Mugabe has allowed the uncertainty about the election to continue for more than three days, defying widespread expectations that he would declare himself the winner rather than relinquish power.

He was advised by the leaders of the armed forces to engineer a second-round runoff, according to one Western diplomat. But the former guerrilla known as "the old man" said such a move would be humiliating, the diplomat said.

Some members of the country's jittery ruling elite have concluded Mugabe must step down and have begun reaching out to opposition leaders to resolve the standoff, according to ruling party members, diplomats and political observers here.

In his first public comments since Saturday's election, Tsvangirai said he was waiting for an official announcement of the results from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission before he would enter any talks.

If Mugabe were to resign, it would be a stunning turnabout in a country where he has been accused of manipulating election results to maintain his lock on power. Even Tsvangirai's victorious address to the nation stood in a stark contrast with the state of the opposition just a year ago, when Tsvangirai and 49 other anti-government protesters were beaten and arrested by police for holding a protest meeting.

On Tuesday the electoral commission, controlled by Mugabe allies, urged patience. But a growing list of indicators now points to Tsvangirai's victory, showing he got nearly half of the vote, over Mugabe's roughly 42 percent. An independent candidate got 8 percent.

The outpouring of voter rejection Saturday appears to have overwhelmed the many political advantages Mugabe enjoyed, including nearly total control over the flow of information and voter rolls that systematically excluded many of his most fervent detractors.

"It's clear that [Mugabe] has lost the vote," said Dumisani Muleya, a political reporter at the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper. In interviews, several senior advisers to Mugabe had told him that "they're trying to find some way to resolve this issue."

Perhaps the most important group in the discussions is the leadership of Mugabe's historically loyal security apparatus. The "securocrats," including top members of the police, military and intelligence service, reportedly are split over whether to act to keep Mugabe in power or to urge him to accept defeat.

A retired general, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the air force chief has refused to back military action to protect Mugabe, while the police force is steadfast behind him.

Election chaos

Zimbabweans living abroad are used to hearing about election chaos back home.

"I've thought Mugabe would leave office the last two election cycles," said Paul Mataruse, a Seattle pharmaceutical-sales representative, who was born in Zimbabwe and moved to Washington state to attend college.

Mataruse, who is active in the local Zimbabwean community, estimates that roughly 150 to 200 Zimbabweans live in the Seattle area. Most are young professionals who left home for better jobs, he said.

"A lot of my friends on Facebook and MySpace are talking about [the election]," Mataruse said.

Hailed a hero

Many Zimbabweans have known no other leader except Mugabe. He was a hero of the nation's independence struggle against white minority rule, and he was hailed during his early years in power for policies of racial conciliation and the health and education advances he had brought to those denied them under colonial rule.

But Mugabe also has been a ruthless autocrat who has unleashed campaigns of murder and terror against his opponents, analysts and critics contend. In 2000, he ordered the takeover of white-owned farms, a decision that cast Zimbabwe into an economic free fall that seems to have no end.

Inflation now runs at 100,000 percent. About a quarter of the population has fled. Most of those remaining behind are unemployed. Life expectancy has fallen from 60 years to 35, and shortages of food, medicine, water, electricity and fuel are chronic.

Discussions in the ruling camp were said to be turning Tuesday to the vast list of decisions that a Tsvangirai government would quickly face. Among them: Would he pursue criminal action against Mugabe for possible crimes against humanity? Would he purge a military built more to battle Mugabe's enemies than outside forces? Would he reverse the land seizures that began in 2000 and return commercial farms to their previous owners, most of them white?

The president's fall would be exceeded, in terms of historic importance here, only by the end of white supremacist rule in 1980, when the nation was called Rhodesia and faced a tenacious guerrilla force led by Mugabe. He has ruled the country ever since.

Tsvangirai, 56, a former trade unionist with a gregarious brand of charisma but limited formal education, has vowed to enact a broad renewal plan to stabilize the currency, curb 100,000 percent inflation and provide free primary education and widespread access to antiretroviral drugs to combat one of the world's worst AIDS epidemics.

Compiled from The Washington Post, The Associated Press and The New York Times.

Seattle Times reporter Karen Johnson contributed to this report.